


hayloft

by cowboyflesh (cowboymeat), lambchops (lambmeat)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hate Sex, Infidelity, M/M, No Lube, Porn with Feelings, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowboymeat/pseuds/cowboyflesh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lambmeat/pseuds/lambchops
Summary: McCree is feral in how he cackles, landing on his back with Reyes above him, like a hyena beneath the lion, flashing teeth and challenging the king. Just as Reyes’ body gives and opens for McCree, just as they both start to bite down and hold on, just as the playing turns serious, Morrison steps in. It steals McCree’s attention with the superficial promises he sees, and he easily falls away from ReyesGabriel doesn’t know what all was said to seduce him into their quarters. All he knows is McCree realizes that he’s wandered into a foul trap, sicker than disease and meaner than sin.
Relationships: Jesse McCree/Reaper | Gabriel Reyes, Jesse McCree/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes/Soldier: 76 | Jack Morrison
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	hayloft

**Author's Note:**

> elements of dubcon- consent and then regret-- it is not noncon

Nothing ever seemed to go right. Everything was analyzed under a critical lense, pulled apart like muscle fiber away from bone and broken down bluntly like teeth tearing and gnashing.

For Morrison, it’s power, and he cannot handle any scent of weakness coming from Reyes. It reeks like rot to him, and he preens and cuts out the decay like a bad fruit without care that he’s discarding the ripe meat along with it. He isn’t perfect and he isn’t powerful, but Reyes is his, so it is his obligation to refine him.

Every time he’s struck by Jack, the “assistance” is written off as good charity. He couldn’t go around looking like  _ that _ , so Jack simply had to wipe his expression clear off. As if Reyes was an ugly wound that needed constant antiseptic washes and new stitches every other day. As if Morrison were the nurse complaining from the labor of administering the treatment of Reyes’ body. 

It leads Reyes to distance himself from his supposed partner as much as he can afford. His work ethic is stronger for it, even if he loathes to accept that Jack has done anything good for him in his life. Buried up to his ears in paperwork, managing it between training recruits and heading drills and simulations day in and day out. There, he has utmost control; he has power over other bodies where he has no control over his own.

At first, it got to Reyes’ head—he was needlessly cruel, he was impatient and caustic in his criticisms, much as a cliche drill sergeant is designed to tear apart and brainwash rookies into believing they aren’t worth anything lest they embody the concept of violence. Many shied away from him, turned from the organization. Maybe that was for the better. What Reyes does and what he has to train the young agents to do is not pleasant and is not for the weak-willed.

There was one that pushed back, really pushed his buttons more and more, and took the consequent verbal lashings and the discipline with a grin. Built from dust and desert, the kid is a wild animal that bites back just as hard.

But it’s playful; it’s not malicious, angry, or spiteful. 

It’s invigorating.

Sparring becomes the highlight of Reyes’ routine, when he can get on the mats with his pent up agents and expel the frustrations from the long work day and even longer night afterward. It’s raw, nothing but natural strength and adrenaline between equals. The line between commander and agent blurs. Reyes was just another target for recruits to overtake. 

McCree fights  _ dirty,  _ with nails and holds and pins that threaten to pull Reyes’ arms from their sockets. He’s feral in how he cackles, landing on his back with Reyes above him, like a hyena beneath the lion, flashing teeth and challenging the king.

It stirs something.

He’s begun to grow soft with McCree on the mats, and being the scavenger that McCree is, he notices.

The equal exchange of blows on the mats starts to shift and bleed onto the schedule of Reyes’ life; the occasional bloody nose drips onto the pristine white shirt collars at meetings, the split lip stings with salt at dinners, and the bruised knuckles make him hold things gingerly, tentatively.

Reyes’ rot smells sweet to McCree, who circles him and closes in where he finds his body absent a predator.

Morrison notices as well, and it smells of necrosis to him. The scavengers have found a full meal. It’s a carcass spat on his doorstep by the strays in the alleys of his nice neighborhood, and he looks down at it in disgust. As Jack turns away from what he considers marred flesh, he seeks out the culprit, the one who rendered the meat from the bone and destroyed what, to him, was carefully constructed beauty, just as the flesh seeks out the scavenger to avoid becoming waste.

Morrison himself softens, sullies his own perfection to get the attention of the carrion-eater dragging away what was rightfully his. He grows gentle, receptive to the teeth, and allows McCree to get close, if just to get a smell. An opportunity to try and discern whether it’s deception or a little death he’ll be getting out of the encounter. Already drawn in close with the sickly sweetness of his commander meeting him as an equal of the plains, a fellow creature and not of a superior being, he follows the trail Morrison lays easily.

Just as Reyes’ body gives and opens for McCree, just as they both start to bite down and hold on,  _ just  _ as the playing turns serious and salacious, Morrison steps in. It steals McCree’s attention with the superficial promises he sees, and he easily falls away from Reyes, leaving him broken where he lay.

Gabriel doesn’t know what he promised McCree, doesn’t know what all was said to seduce him into their quarters while Reyes was busy in a meeting. All he knows is McCree realizes that he’s wandered into a foul trap, sicker than disease and meaner than sin.

Jack is a powerful predator, seeking out weakness in his prey and honing in on it. The hole that Reyes and McCree opened in each other is big enough for Morrison to allow himself in with ease; the vulnerability they’ve exposed themselves to in their affections is the softest flesh that his canines sink into like a prime cut. His intent is to rip them away from each other, tear McCree to pieces and teach a lesson to not mess with what is his.

Jack is cruel—his hands are not kind as they undress McCree, but he doesn’t smell the deception yet, only the sickeningly sweet scent of rotten fruit that lured him in. His lips are not loving against his, not as they bite and try to break his own into submission. But he’s too eager to notice the flags.

“Turn around,” Jack orders, voice low and husky and McCree thinks he can get used to this, get used to this tone reserved for him. Morrison isn’t fully undressed, and that makes it hotter for the cowboy, being bared and exposed and vulnerable in the face of power because he feels as though he is equal, just as Reyes treats him.

Obliging after one more sharp nip to the strike-commander’s throat, he allows himself to be manhandled, turned and have his hips pushed against the edge of the bed. The rough hands keep him steady as Morrison uses his body, rutting his still-clothed erection against the supple swell of Jesse’s ass.

The reality of the trap doesn’t set in until he hears, then senses, the older man grace his hole with his saliva. Riding high on fumes and heat and touch and  _ close _ —the things he craves most—the entirety of the room falls away apart from the crush of the mattress below him and the solid mass of Jack above. The younger squirms against the fabric of his briefs, a stupid gutteral growl clawing from his throat. 

“Fuck me,” Jesse manages, near-drooling and tripping over himself as he surges towards the sense of equality that he so desperately seeks. So feverish that Jack can feel it radiating off of his skin as sunlight does asphalt, the cowboy greedily ruts his cock against the bedsheets. It earns him a strike to the flank. What is intended as a method of whipping the inferior into submission only makes McCree redouble his efforts. 

Attempts at filling the strike-commander’s ears with filth are stonewalled; Morrison is honed in on the task at hand, and no more. Fulfilling his biological needs at this point are secondary to his overarching mission of stealing Gabriel back from the jackal of a man beneath him. It is means to an end. He glances at the bedside clock. Plenty of time to use the agent as needed before Reyes would return from his meeting to find them.

Greedy hands interrupt his train of thought, fingers grasping at the straining length in his briefs eagerly, as though to transcend the fabric through impatience and receive his prize. McCree is corrected in one fell swoop, with the offending hand now pinned borderline-uncomfortably at the small of his back. A shiver tickles his vertebrae.

“Don’t touch me,” Jack spits, finally freeing himself just enough to allow his cock to spring free. He smears the barely-slick mass against the rim of the cowboy’s hole with the blunt head of his cock, earning another poorly-muffled gasp from the man beneath him. The venom in his words and the abrupt almost-intrusion snaps McCree back to reality, and his breath catches in his throat. He’s no stranger to meaningless fucks—it’s not enough to deter him from the intimacy entirely—but it does drive a stake through his confidence. 

Almost clinical in his execution, Morrison does take enough pity on McCree to give his already-throbbing length a few strokes before moving his hand back up to assist in pressing his head just past the tight ring of muscle. Full-bodied, Jesse gasps at the intrusion, rib cage flexing as his lungs threaten to explode. He holds the breath, frozen in the hopes that it would ease the pressure somewhat. McCree’s cock leaks.

“ _ Jack, _ I can’t—”

“Commander.”

The cowboy loses his words again. Frigid tone collides with Jesse just as severely as their implications and all he knows to do is ball his free fist in the bedsheets, nails catching on the five hundred thread-count linens. Jack offers him the good graces of another wad of spit as he agonizingly splits him over his cock.

“Big,” is all McCree can eke out. Objectively, Morrison is of average length—perhaps a bit more girthy than is to be expected—but he feels about ten times larger than he truly is when he’s mercilessly pressing in. A knife’s-edge of pleasure waxes and wanes the further the commander thrusts into his impossibly tight hole, ending on  _ toomuchnotenough _ as Jack finally bottoms out.

“At least you know how to do one thing,” Morrison says dryly. The only indication that this is anything greater than another chore to him is the furrow in his brow and the hitch of his hips. The negging falls on deaf ears as McCree flutters around to accommodate him. Morrison has half the mind to seize him by his hair, tugging him to attention. The urge passes.

“Please, sir.”

“Please, what?”

“Use me.”

Jack huffs, but McCree can’t tell whether it’s a breathy chuckle, or a puff of arousal. The older man only pulls out about an inch, and even then, it’s a concentrated effort to thrust back in. The cowboy’s back bows below him, and his legs wrap around Jack’s to prevent his escape again.

“Get off of me.”

The order is ignored, and the cowboy’s legs close around him tighter. It gives the strike-commander incentive to truly punish the agent for his insubordination, but his clearer mind advocates against it. His goal isn’t to overtly hurt McCree, simply humiliate him enough in front of Gabriel that his partner-in-command is put off from him. 

The cruelty behind his actions is enough discipline to deter McCree from ever sticking his nose in places it doesn’t belong. The only thing that registers from Morrison’s implicit lesson is that the younger really should stick with who he has, the security of familiarity. It delivers the opposite effect entirely. 

The burn as Morrison starts to fuck him in earnest overrides any secondary drive for intimacy and worth. The novelty of being on a different playing field than other agents, being  _ more  _ than they ever could be, has soured. 

Just the one hand ripping at the quality sheets isn’t enough as Jack fucks him hard enough to punch the breath out of him if they weren’t already wheedled out in pitiful whines and groveling moans. Exerting his position over McCree, Morrison has a bruising grip on his hip, making sure that his thrusts don’t push the body beneath him too far away, lest it make his task more of a nuisance than it already is. 

It’s just another layer of abject discomfort, McCree finding it enough to allot attention to getting the digging thumb out the meat of his back. If he could free his wrist, Jack wouldn’t have to squeeze him so  _ tightly— _

Twisting his wrist, testing Morrison’s attention, Jesse tries to slip the hand free to give him something, anything, to ground himself. 

Jack scoffs.

The grip on his limb turns punishing; lifting higher, Morrison manages to rip a yelp from the younger as his body is pushed too far. 

“Stop fighting,” Morrison bites, not missing a beat as he ruins the younger. McCree can hardly drag air into his burning lungs as his waterline stings. Gasping, his body sags into the plush memory foam mattress, allowing it to swaddle him as he’s abused.

The defeated resignation smells like obedience to Morrison, and he allows a serrated grin as rearranges the now-pliant body to his liking. Collecting both wrists together, he leverages McCree’s body back into the forceful thrusts by the arms, the position putting a strain on Jesse’s lungs. 

Then he forces McCree to rise onto his knees just so, at the perfect angle to engage his core with no relief from his thighs. Somehow, it allows Morrison to drive himself even deeper, deep enough for McCree to taste the repulsion in his throat. At least he could breathe, somewhat, and McCree, born of harsh conditions and fitted for survival, knows how to count blessings.

Spit does next to nothing to ease the way. McCree’s not sure if he’ll walk right for a week as Morrison drives in his point and makes sure the lesson is taken away in full. Panting open-mouthed into the sheets, smearing his drool against the silken fabric, he can feel his body struggling to accommodate to the strike-commander’s cock.

Without  _ any  _ prep, Jack has to fuck McCree open before he can properly use his body. It’s a grueling process, dragging his hips back and snapping them forward against the resistance of his tight heat, forcing McCree’s stubborn body to take it all. There’s progress as a moan slips from reluctant lips and McCree clenches around him, trying to reclaim any pleasure from Morrison.

His cock, flushed and heavy enough to brush against the soft sheets, weeps liberally even as he groans, shuttering and shallow. It’s not enough to compensate for all that Morrison robs him in anger.

“F- _ uck _ —” McCree wheezes, eyes shut tight against the overwhelmed tears that threaten to escape. The sharp point of pain of Morrison’s cock stretching him open has receded as McCree’s hole takes without protest now. The ache of it is still present, singing in his guts as Jack uses the biological permission to grunt and double down in his own pursuits. The slap of his thighs against McCree’s skin stings, and his shoulders cramp as he’s pulled around like a doll.

For an impossibly long time, Jack thrusts into his guts, twisting him up into knots until it’s unclear where Morrison ends and Jesse begins. Sounds of skin against skin and the occasional youthful crack of a joint as McCree is contorted into a new position for Jack to use fill the air, deafening each of them to the sets of boot-clad footsteps dispersing along the halls outside. The meeting adjourned late, and a handful of exhausted leaders shuffle back to their quarters to the backdrop of infidelity.

No one mentions it, only casting their gaze down as they pass the strike-commander’s quarters.

As cut-and-dry as Morrison would have liked it to be, purely tactical and only in search of a particular outcome, he loses a portion of his higher awareness as carnal pleasure blooms in his frontal lobe.

Drawing Jesse’s hair back into a crude ponytail, Jack pulls his head back taut, exposing his throat and forcing eye contact. His lips curl back in a snarl-smile. Subsequently, he pulls almost all the way out, head tugging at the rim of McCree’s hole. He only just catches Jesse’s eyes widening in realization before snapping his hips forward again. The younger man’s eyes roll back and his body slackens even as he’s punished by the hair-pulling, shuddering around the commander’s blood-swollen cock. 

“Know your place,” Jack growls in his ear, eyes hooded as the tight heat of Jesse’s hole bears down against him, begging for reprieve. Another mean tug of the hair, and McCree’s muffled wail fills the room. “Don’t go sticking your nose where you don’t belong,  _ agent _ .”

Tears freely flow down the cowboy’s cheeks, staining the skin and dampening his beard. Wholly humiliated, all he can do is wait for Morrison to finish and pray that he’d do him the favor of helping him over the edge, too. 

“Shit,  _ please _ —I’m sorry.”

“Not good enough, McCree.”

There are only another handful of seconds before Morrison spills deep inside of Jesse, making an utter mess, but it feels like hours to Jesse’s ruined hole. The only indication outside of the heat pooling in the cowboy’s guts that Jack actually finished was a deep groan from the older man. He rocks his hips a few more times, much to Jesse’s distress.

To his further distress, and to Jack’s surprise, the lock to the quarters’ door shifts with a heavy  _ clunk _ . Dead silence, apart from the heavy-footed approach of a third party, newcomer no doubt shocked by the scene unfolding before them.

Jesse cranes his neck to see. Any blood remaining in his cheeks drains instantly, and more succinctly than Jack could ever dream to cause him to go sick, the sight causes his stomach to drop and curl in on itself like a dying beetle. Reyes. 

“It was nothin’— I didn’t—” McCree begins to explain, voice hoarse in his throat. He winces as he turns, with the strike-commander still very much buried inside of him. 

Silently, those unreadable dark brown eyes dart between the cowboy’s clearly-distressed face, and the subtly-smug, flushed features of his supposed partner. Gabriel’s brow tugs into a frown. 

“Don’t let him fool you. He knows exactly what he’s doing, Reyes.”

“Shut up,” is all the inferior commander states.

That’s all his lips can form, all his tongue will allow him to utter as Gabriel looks upon the scene before him. 

His heart lies shattered at his feet, bleeding into the seams of the polished wooden floor. 

The scent of Reyes’ rot is sweet to Morrison. His anguish is the reward he was looking for in his efforts. 

“He was asking for it,” Jack snipes, moving his hand to the dip of Jesse’s stomach and pressing down just above the base of his cock. It makes McCree wince, being forced to feel the seed inside him and the shame of carrying it.

The young man still snug around his cock shifts again as he pulls in a shuddering, wet breath, and he’s caught between proving a point and letting McCree off easy with what he’s already learned. Rolling his hips, making sure Jesse feels him at his deepest one last time, he gracelessly pulls free. 

He’s had his fun. To go any further, and it would be crossing legal lines, he begrudgingly thinks. 

The cowboy hisses as his ruined hole is left empty, and his descent to the mattress is hastened as Morrison all but shoves him away. If he wanted to, he would have spat on McCree as well, with bile-sweet spit heavy in his mouth. 

Having refused to pry his eyes away from his partner, he watches as Reyes’ scowl deepens impossibly across his sick face. The other commander doesn’t warrant his intense staring with words or emotion, simply staring at the young man that lay on the sheets, slowly trying to pull himself together in his bed of humiliation and shame. 

“I…” McCree tried to start, stopping with a sniffle before crawling onto his elbows, “don’t look at me.”

He sounds so small, so broken. 

Morrison chuckles and casually tucks himself away. The strike-commander passes one more gaze over the scene, relishing the anguish he’s caused, before slipping off to their en-suite to clean up. Jack can almost sense the way his partner’s gaze sears into his shoulders, and it delights him. 

Reyes squeezes his eyes shut tight for a moment, willing his body to respond to the rage boiling in his veins. He knows all too well the pains of Morrison’s dominance, how selfish he is in his intimacy. Doesn’t think lube matters all too much and that spit works just fine, and thinks that foreplay and stretching to any degree is a waste of time. It’s all for his pleasure, and none for his partner’s. 

It’s another act of breaking and rebuilding things to his whim. Reyes is accustomed to such abuse, knowing how to get around the circumstances set against his own pleasure, but McCree—

His jaw clenches, and he’s besides the bed. McCree is attempting to dry his tears against his palm and will the strength back into his strained muscles, not wanting to be seen in such a wrecked and pathetic state. 

Flinching at the gentle contact of Gabriel,  _ his  _ commander, he tries to shove away and preserve a sense of dignity. Preparing to bite, snap, and growl at Reyes, he falters and stills with his lip still pulled back. 

The older man gazes down at him without pity, but understanding and an agony deeper than his own. His eyes are still as warm as ever, deep and expansive as he searches McCree’s eyes for something. 

"Está bien," he whispers, low enough that Jack cannot hear how he speaks directly to McCree. 

The kindness draws fresh tears to the deep wells of Jesse’s eyes, and he sniffles, shrugs, and moves to hide in the commander’s shadow. A broad palm, warm, calloused, and gentle, sweeps across his back and down his flank, soothing him like an upset animal. 

McCree simply shakes his head, unable to work his vocal cords in a manner that would resemble coherent speech. 

Stooping to collect McCree’s fatigues and his shirt, he gingerly urges him to move, and quickly, a breath of haste in his movements. 

“Let’s get you to my quarters. There’s a shower. I’ll lend you some of my clothes,” Reyes says. His voice is increasingly gravelly as he lowers his volume, intent to hide the agent for as long as need be. Angela would need to look him over, no doubt, but he has no desire to rush the agent through recovery. 

Though common knowledge that he and Jack are partners, Reyes is still given a handful of additional accommodations on account of his rank. Surely coated in a layer of dust at this point, given how closely the other likes to keep him under his thumb and encourages Reyes to retire with him instead, there’s an additional pseudo-apartment at the opposing end of the hall. All the privacy Jesse could need to recover after such an encounter. 

On shaky fawn legs and help from Gabriel offering a shoulder to support him, Jesse rises to his full height again. He seems paler, unwilling to make eye contact or budge so much as an inch away from his commander. Disgustingly, it reminds Gabriel of the early days of his and Jack’s relationship, where he was used as a toy however Morrison liked, and left to deal with the aftermath unsupported. Innumerable days of hobbling through training only to be scolded for improper form and forced to start over again. 

Rage renewed in the relief from knowing Jesse hasn’t been hurt, the Blackwatch commander clenches his jaw. He’s fully aware of Morrison’s intent to hurt him; he’s not blind, and Jack isn’t as slick as he thinks he is. Normally, it would simply drive him away for a few days until he comes slinking back in search of that thorny false intimacy, but throwing his favored agent-lover-it's-complicated-really into the mix makes him see red. The very reason he swears to bear the brunt of the abuse in the first place is to protect anyone else who might wander too close to Morrison. 

As if on cue, the lion struts forward from the den of the en-suite and Reyes can feel little Daniel cower into his side. Proud as ever, and visibly holding himself higher, Morrison attempts to exercise his dominion over Reyes. Gabriel will have no part in it. 

Baiting the violent and actionable response he hopes for, “He really was asking for it, Gabe. I wouldn’t touch an agent unless they were.”

“Ana and I will be here at 0700 to pick up my things,” Reyes speaks through his teeth. His tone is deceptively calm, calling to mind the shitty tapes and lectures used to train on de-escalating a violent situation in the field, and the nonresponse adds fuel to the pyre. “If you come within feet of my door, I will call for security.”

The pride morphs into outrage, an angry flush rising to the strike-commander’s cheeks. Gabriel has never told him no before. Morrison’s jaw hangs agape, venom and bile and fury laying hot on his tongue as Reyes guides his agent towards the door. 

“What do you think you’re  _ doing _ , Reyes?”

“I’m not letting what happened to me happen to him. I’m getting my things in the morning. Don’t follow me.” A shuddering breath from McCree rattles Gabe’s ribs. 

The sudden defiance and show of a backbone seemingly glues the lion’s feet to the floor, keeping Reyes and McCree well outside of snapping distance. Come whatever fallout may; the confounding rage that is currently gnawing away at Jack is enough for a lifetime of disgrace from a manufactured dishonorable discharge. 

A calm open-and-shut of the door, and Gabriel and McCree are in the fresh air of the dormitory hallways. A number of aided steps go by before Gabriel dares to speak. 

“I can find somewhere else to sleep tonight. I want you to take my bed, clean yourself up in my shower. Whatever you need.” Where Jack’s orders came from a place of total power and required utmost attention, Gabriel’s came from one of true concern for the younger man. “I’ll wait in the room while you shower. Just to make sure that you don’t need any help. Okay?”

_ ‘Okay?’  _ Jesse hadn’t been asked for permission on just about  _ any _ decision involving himself for longer than he could try to remember. Why does Reyes care so much?

“Mmhm,” he slurs. 

The air inside Reyes’ room is cool, calm, like a bath drawn and left sitting. Separate from the air of Morrison’s quarters that reek of split champagne and extinguished candles, this space simply felt clean and untouched by such domestic turmoil. 

Stepping into the room, he realizes that he had forgotten his boots back in Morrison’s room, the hardwood of Gabriel’s quarters cold beneath him. Footsteps are soft, patting the finely finished floors as he’s guided to the bathroom across the expansive room. Trying to take everything at once, forgetting that he was going to be sleeping there, he tries to witness the interior of Reyes.

The dorm was large and open, much like a studio apartment. Dark with hardwood floors leading out of the foyer and warm with a fireplace laying long dormant in the corner between bookshelves, the specific lighting casts the room in a gentle wash of orange. It felt more like a high-end bar with his impressive kitchen space and atmosphere than a commander’s living space.

It felt comfortable, and Jesse felt something settle in him like a stray dog accepting a collar.

Stopping before the bathroom, he feels Reyes’ hand start to leave his back, and he chews his lip.

“Wait,” he says, voice roughened and jagged. He has to clear his throat before he can get the simple words out. “I… can you…” McCree, suddenly conscious of himself and the domestic request he’s trying to ask and starts to abandon the effort in order to push open the door. Reyes isn’t deaf, and knows how to fill in blanks. 

Following the younger into the bathroom, he starts the water, running it at a safe temperature to allow McCree to adjust it as he wishes. He imagines he’ll like it boiling, being of such hot blood and arid climates. Simple as a desert plant, he has certain conditions that need met in order to survive.

McCree’s are simple- attention, bourbon, and fist fights. He simply can’t go a day without scratching at Reyes’ door, looking for something. And he, rather foolishly, lets the wolf at the door in.

He hesitates removing his shirt, and doesn’t seem able to strip himself of his sweats. 

Approaching him, he presses against his side.

“I can step outside, or-”

“No,” McCree says quickly, “jus’...” He makes a broad gesture towards the shower. “Get in first.”

Offering privacy, he turns away and strips quickly, stepping into the shower and facing the opposite direction of the room. It takes a moment, allowing Reyes time to adjust to the water (hotter than what he prefers) before he hears the soft pattering of feet against the tiles, and a tentative face peeks in. 

He extends an inviting palm, and McCree accepts it. If he had them, his ears would be laying flat to his head as he slinked into the shower, uncertain and primed to survive no matter what. The offered hand turns into open arms, and he coaxes the skittish creature against his chest in a tight, swaying embrace. The tension of the night bleeds into the shower drain as he simply holds Jesse to the water, reaching past him to tweak the temperature as he wishes, and rubbing reassuring strokes up and down his back.

McCree fits so snugly against his body, molded into his arms. The positioning of their arms felt natural and comfortable as they held each other quietly, Jesse content to breathe deep and slow against Reyes’ collarbone and Reyes happy to nuzzle his ear, occasionally humming assurances. 

Pursuing the stray of a man felt near impossible, even as he came within snapping distance of Reyes’ jaws. So close and so far. Each and every effort has felt like a simple tussle, a time spent well-wasted, rather than something deeper. That was in part because of Morrison’s reign over Reyes, how he stalked the predator in his own territory and stole his prey for himself. It was a food chain with Gabriel caught imperfectly in the middle, stuck in limbo as he sought to chase the curious and quick-witted hyena that cackled and teased, while the poacher sought to control him, the lion and the king, for personal profit.

There’s only so much one can take, even in his own home. McCree, chased out of Reyes’ plains with Morrison’s efforts, proves to him that he can no longer co-exist with such a malevolent force around him.

Hundreds of questions he wants to ask Jesse lay latent on his tongue. He certainly doesn’t wish to overwhelm the younger just as he seems to be receding into somewhere more comfortable, but he also doesn’t want McCree to stew in anxiety over the state of their relationship—professional or otherwise. 

He remains silent, though, opting to instead help McCree bathe. Undoubtedly, he’s able to do so himself, but he doesn’t seem put off as the commander lathers the stupidly-expensive soap that Jack insists he be stocked with. At least it smells nice. And it’s so seldom-used that it hasn’t been tainted by virtue of being another facet of Morrison’s control. 

“Can I wash you?” Gabriel asks. His intent is innocent; he simply knows that nothing helps ease the sense of disgust more than a shower. It’s no cure-all, but some of the shame rolls down the drain. 

“Yeah,” McCree murmurs against the larger’s collar bone. 

Reyes nods. As he tenderly handles the agent, he announces his movements prior to carrying them out in order to give him ample time to refuse a touch. The last thing he wanted after servicing Jack was an unwelcome touch. 

“This wasn’t how I expected to see you fully naked for the first time,” Gabriel offers in dry humor. It elicits a strange noise from Jesse, half-chuckle and half-huff. 

“I know.”

“Didn’t mean it like—that. I know what it’s like when he does that kind of thing. Our ‘honeymoon,’ if you could call it that, consisted of him using me like a toy and me pretending that I liked it.”

“You married?”

“Only technically. It was before the war. We wouldn’t be split up that way, and if one of us died, we had some say in what happened to the other’s body.”

Jesse offers a thoughtful hum, but no discernible words. 

“He wasn’t always like that,” Reyes says, absently stroking at the agent’s flank now, rather than properly lathering him. Lost in thought. “He used to be the kindest man I knew. Something changed him.”

McCree nods, finding his words again. “Can tell. You wouldn’ waste your time with anyone who don’t love you.”

“Are you confessing something, Jess?”

The cowboy practically melds to Reyes’ contours again at the mere utterance of the pet name. It’s the first time it’s fallen on his ears in an affectionate way, as opposed to a derogatory one, and it sounds like heaven to him. 

What is initially a joke poking fun at Gabriel’s expense, making light of the fact that the ring on his finger keeps pulling him back to Morrison like the noose around his neck is drawn by horseback, makes the commander’s heart skip a beat. The agent’s lack of response doesn’t lessen that effect at all. 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Gabriel says, flustered at the lack of denial. “I… think just as highly of you, McCree.”

_ What was he saying?  _ The lack of clarity rains down on his psyche like a flurry, snowing him in and trapping him with those thoughts. After Jack, he’s not even sure he has the capacity for anything greater than a lukewarm fondness, much less true  _ love _ . 

“Are you— you doin’ alright, kid?”

Reyes sounds like a blushing virgin again, and it makes him cringe. Even so, it does nothing to mitigate the flutter in his chest. 

All he hears is a soft sniffle against his collarbone, barely heard above the din of water.

Pulling back just so, trying to get a good look at McCree’s face to gauge his next step, his next action, he realizes that McCree is indeed crying.

Mouth opening in the beginnings of a question, Reyes is quickly hushed with a soft chuckle. He scowls, confused, at the younger as he fruitlessly tries to dry his eyes of moisture with his hands. 

“This is… the shittiest way to hear my crush say he likes me back,” Jesse mumbles, then huffs another laugh, then another another, and Reyes has a hard time discerning whether McCree is laughing or crying. 

“I…” Reyes starts, confused.

“Only took— it- it took  _ a lot _ ,” McCree settles on saying, wincing as he tries to vocalize his all too recent trauma. He’s been through worse, but he doesn’t think he’s been through something as scarring as the exposure and humiliation Morrison sentenced him to. 

Maybe that was for the better, maybe it’s what had to happen to get where he is, standing before his commander under the water too hot for Reyes’ liking. He'd never budged when it came to anyone else in the shower, not even Jack, and McCree gets that particular sense as Reyes sticks just outside the range of fire. 

Bending, molding himself to McCree’s presence and not the other way around. Accommodating.

“I’m sorry.”

McCree shakes his head, seals himself back against Reyes’ body and simply enjoys the wall of muscle keeping his water-warmed body upright. Reyes pets his flanks, up to his ribs, over his shoulders, and hugs him in that particular way of his. It expels the breath from his lungs and cracks his back just where he needed it, and the next breath he lets out is a happy noise, the first of the night. 

“Dense bastard,” he muses, teasing his commander.

“Mhm,” is all he gets. 

They stay there, slotted against one another, for long enough that the shower runs cold. McCree is keen on voicing his disapproval and ushering his commander out of the shower. 

The bedsheets smell of antiquity, thanks to the comforter's disuse. It isn’t painful, as if it’s a visit to a late relative's estate to settle matters, but more like it has been stored in the attic for a lifetime, pulled down in a bid for warmth and security and familiarity. 

The bed is raised up by two steps circling it, and is pushed into the corner of the room. There are cubbies built into the wall that replace the need for a nightstand, with a light switch controlling warm lights built within the shelves. 

Reyes allows him the spot by the wall. 

“I need to text Ana,” Reyes says, sliding under the sheets beside the younger. 

McCree is silent for a long time, clinging to Gabriel’s side as though he’d disappear if he moved even the slightest. His face is smoothed over in stoicism as the cold shine of his phone illuminates his features. It seems like he hovers over something, frowning just so with his eyes reading text over and over again. Ultimately, he looks away from it and sets the phone aside. 

“Are…” McCree starts, feeling as though he was stepping through a bramble barrier into unknown territory, “are you going to leave him?”

His voice is delicate, uncertain.

“It’s complicated,” Reyes says, clearly preoccupied by what Jesse can tell is a multi-paragraphed wall of text from who he can only assume is Morrison. The commander swipes the text thread away in order to open another with Ana. “Ultimately, yes. But he’s not going to let me get away with it unscathed. We don’t have any joint bank accounts, but he can cut it off at the source and take my job. Easily. He always makes sure I’m aware of that.”

Jesse nods meekly, a flutter of anxiety in his chest like a spring wind at the prospect of being the mistress that tore the Strike-Commander of Overwatch from his equally-decorated war veteran husband. He’s far from being the homewrecker, seeing as Morrison did that of his own volition and turned Reyes into the displaced trophy wife seeking the neighbor’s comfort without McCree’s involvement. But the press wouldn’t be so kind, particularly if Jack opted to call the agent out by name in another vain attempt to steal Gabriel back for himself.

“I can’t be in the same room with him after this, much less the same bed,” the commander states as he hurriedly taps out a message to his dear friend. 

Once it’s sent, he shakes his head and pulls the younger man closer. The innocent proximity is nice, for once experienced with full clarity rather than glazed over with the satisfaction of a too-hurried sexual encounter prior to it. Perhaps a bit backwards as far as the stereotypical relationship goes, but why should Gabriel care what anyone else thought? It’s a privilege lended to him by being more out of the limelight than Morrison is. 

The impending divorce would no doubt cause waves, not only in the news but throughout the organization, but it was bound to happen at some point. The first time that Jack laid hands on him with the intent to hurt; the first time he raised his voice to threaten his livelihood—he sealed the fate of their relationship. 

Not to mention, if he so much as implies McCree was involved at all, they had evidence of infidelity and manipulation of an agent. That would be quite the nuke to drop on his reputation.

Just as Jesse is beginning to drift off to the metronome of Gabriel’s heartbeat, his commander’s phone chimes with a message. Even the phone’s lowest brightness is like knives to his relaxed pupils, and the cowboy hides his face against the other man’s bare chest. It earns him an amused chuckle, but the warmth in his tone is drained as he reads and responds.

“Ana is coming with me tomorrow morning to get my things. She’s playing mediator, but she never liked how she saw Jack treat me either, so I don’t know how that’ll go.”

Jesse shifts to peer up at him.

“I can’t—”

“I know. I don’t expect you to go.”

He can feel McCree’s Adam’s apple bob against him. 

“I’ll have Angela come in the morning to look you over, okay?”

“Guess so.”

Reyes sighs through his nose gently, unreadable. “You comfortable?”

“Much as I can be.”

The scrape of close-cropped hair on the pillow as Reyes nods.

“Good night, Jesse.”

“I love you.”

No response. Oddly, the lack of the expected echo doesn’t upset Jesse; he doesn’t expect Gabriel to be able to utter those words again, at least not for a while. If ever. He speaks through his actions, anyway. It’s more meaningful. He doesn’t need to be told; he feels it in the way that the work-roughed fingers card through his tangles of damp-dry hair and the way that his breaths puff against McCree’s blush-kissed cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> working with my partner on this one, we (cowboyflesh and i) commonly headcanon morrison to be more abusive, if not outright damaging, with possessiveness and manipulation, so this was really a test at how that translates into writing outside our thoughts.
> 
> this isn't noncon- consent is explicitly given- but it does become dubcon as jesse comes to regret the decision halfway through. he still doesn't revoke consent, and he's never in a situation where he can't speak.
> 
> any comments, feedback, or suggestions/requests are welcome!


End file.
